ABSTRACT
Drug court judges find the therapeutic form of adjudication personally fulfilling, liberating in comparison to their traditional role, and invigorating in its allowance of extra-adjudicative activism. John Schwartz is, in fact, very proud of the innovative effort represented in the un-common law format of the drug court. Commensurate with developments in other arenas of the American judiciary, drug court judges assume an activist, “problem solving” orientation. If the classical trait of judicial passivity is absent in the drug court, even less evident are the common law notions of disinterest and impartiality. Drug court judges are actually instructed to be interested and invested in the clients who come before them. A utilitarian orientation has been an important justificatory principle legitimating the expansion of the drug court movement. That the drug court is a more satisfying role is repeated over and over by drug court judges.
